No you can’t check my bag! I’m calling the cops and suing all of you!

I’m learning to keep my mouth shut in retirement! I was at Canadian Tire today buying robot spray paint at 12:45 when a guy cut through the cash I was at trying to leave and my cashier asked to check the green grocery bag he was carrying (there’s a huge screen about them reserving the right to check bags above us). The small dude tells her she’s not checking his bag, keeps going, and she leaves the cash to follow him and gets two other ladies to go with her…. (Uhh… I’ll just wait here then….). She comes back a minute later pissed about the failed bag check, rings me up, makes a mistake, starts again (she’s flustered) and Little dude with the green bag comes back yelling at everybody. Thankfully she got to the Interac part and I can pay. As I’m doing that Little dude is yelling at the three women asking them if they thought he was a thief then “How come ya didn’t call the police!’. He thrusts the green bag at them ‘ Check it!, I’m getting my truck fixed, I just had to go to the bathroom!’. They point at the ‘bag checking’ sign, ask him not to yell, he continues, totally yelling ; ‘You think I’m a thief? I’m calling the cops! I’m gonna sue all of you!’ (I’m not sure if I’m included in this  proposed lawsuit). The ladies are like “We’re calling the cops too!’

I finish up, I ask for a receipt but they’re still yelling…

Little Dude is definitely acting pushy and sketchy. He may or may not be getting his truck fixed but there’s not many reasons to walk around Canadian Tire with an outside grocery bag. He’s black and there’s always the possibility that he gets hassled racially and he’s sick of it because it happens all the time because people suck, but… He was all ‘You can’t look in my bag’ and he goes into the restroom, came out and now he’s all “Look in my bag!” Opening it up and stuff. Shit it looks empty now.. and I’m wondering if maybe they should go check the garbage can in the rest room for any merch… I meet a lot of con artists and one thing I’ve noticed is they GET IN THE FACE of people who call them out (also the “I’ll sue bullshit”). As soon as I see a certain version of it, I’m like… Bullshit, I’m not buying it (this has saved me from all kinds of headaches in the past).. Then again, some people honestly act like that when falsely accused… Hard to tell. The Canadian Tire self-serve has been closed for two months at least and I saw security bust two groups of shoplifters when it was open this year so shoplifting must be off the charts…

I thought about saying this, and then thought that I don’t know shit about that guy’s situation, then about my afternoon plans, there’s no physical danger from Little dude, these ladies got this.. I just shut my mouth and left :-)

This is a new thing for me :-)

Liquid Foot LF+ 12+ error/issue - It was the CR2450 battery

I bought an LF+12+ in 2012. Despite the insane learning curve (if you disagree then you're smarter than me) I love the functional possibilities and options and try to use them all. You could launch the a SpaceX Rocket with one of these. Support on the other hand, kinda sketchy at times. The company seems to go away at times and comes back and then leaves again. After not using it for half a year I clicked it on and it started acting weird. It looked like this:

 I tried to update the firmware to 6.32, and it would sometimes throw an error in the software (version 6.31): "FAMC Error (673-52-0) Restart LF+ Editor email FAMC with code". I read in the notes about the one time "Special - Update Internal Data" option under hardware and ran that once, retried the firmware. The unit itself seemed to be working, program changes getting through, but the LCD text and button text and colours were not behaving. I logged onto the FAMC forums and tried to search (man there are 100s of bot accounts spamming all kinds of CRAP) but did not find anything describing my issue. I went to create a ticket and saw my last one from 2020 un-answered and didn't bother. 

A google search however turned up mention of a battery in the unit causing weird characters and colours when it fails. It's a CR2450 3v and these are usually available in any drug store in Canada. 

The owner of FAMC actually responded in the thread, mentioned an 8 year battery life (mine lasted 12 years) and that it was glued in to avoid problems with it coming loose. 

Once you take off the housing screws and remove the four 1/4" jacks (be careful with the washers), the metal housing comes apart. You can see the battery under a metal piece the smaller board is affixed to. 

You need to remove the metal board to flip it over to access the smaller board. 

I worked the old battery out and swapped in a new one and plopped some hot glue on each corner. Turned the unit back on and it came up normally with LCD text and button colours making sense. Thanks to the forums! It's the only way we can keep these fine units going these days. 

Ottawa Trucker Convoy Protest - Feb 11 2022

I had two hours to kill between appointments so I went downtown to take some 360 pano's of the visitors staging the occupation of our downtown core. If you click on the full screen icon in each preview, it's easier to rotate the images around and see everything. Taken with an Insta360 One X2 camera.

Wellington and Metcalfe

         

       

Terry Fox Statue

 

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\shutdown.exe has initiated the restart of computer on behalf of user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Reason Code: 0x800000ff

 

 We had some servers go down unexpectedly after we re-populated some SCCM(MECM) collections. 

EVENT 1074

 The process C:\Windows\SysWOW64\shutdown.exe (<servername>) has initiated the restart of computer <servername> on behalf of user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM for the following reason: No title for this reason could be found

  Reason Code: 0x800000ff

  Shutdown Type: restart

No on behalf of, no reason etc..  A regular SCCM patching reboot looks like this:

The process C:\Windows\CCM\CcmExec.exe (<servername>) has initiated the restart of computer <servername> on behalf of user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM for the following reason: No title for this reason could be found

 Reason Code: 0x80020001

 Shutdown Type: restart

 Comment: Your computer will restart at 2021-02-06 8:46:42 AM to complete the installation of applications and software updates.

 

It turns our after looking in C:\windows\ccm\logs\execmgr.log on one of the servers around the same reboot time we saw that an old pre-reboot job had kicked in we had in place with no maintenance window. 

Executing program as a script     execmgr              2021-02-05 4:07:35 PM   14768 (0x39B0)

Successfully prepared command line "C:\Windows\system32\shutdown.exe" /r /f /t 0  execmgr              2021-02-05 4:07:35 PM          14768 (0x39B0)

So it was SCCM after all. 

Adobe Premiere Elements 2019 crashes on import - in my case it was strange files in the import folders

Adobe support for shit like this is disgraceful. They appear to rely entirely on their user community to figure out why their software crashes. When you go through what everyone says, redo the catalog, turn off auto facial recognition, sacrifice a chicken, etc. everything is still crashy. At the end of the day though, it's usually garbage in garbage out right?

I used PROCMON to try and pinpoint what was going on when the crash happened. You go to Tools\Count Occurrences, set the column to "results" and look for bad things like "Access denied", etc. In this case, nothing..

I went through the adobe logs, but they only log at start up, not on stuff like imports, which is not useful. Never looked into a verbose logging setting, and carried onto the next test.

Step through the folders I was importing one at a time, backing up the catalog when I had success and no crash. The catalogs in WIN10 are in "C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs" and you just make a backup copy of the folder. Keep importing, taking notes and then restore when you have a crash an start looking at the types of files in the folder that gives you the issue.

In my case, it was having non photo files in the folders with my pictures. In my case I had made a slide show and kept the source files for MUVEE reveal  ( *.rvl and .PKF files) in a subfolder off the folder with the photos. It also did not like the AVI files (not sure what flavor I had) I had generated making a raiders of the lost ark type animated travel line. Once the .AVI files were ZIPPED so Elements would not import them, the crashing went away.

No thanks to Adobe...

The Old man in my hospital room and the seat belt debacle 1988.

We were talking about seat belt infractions today and how back in the 80’s they used to pull you over and give you a ticket for not wearing your seatbelt. This triggered an unusual trip down memory lane. When I was 18 I got my leg ripped open one Sunday afternoon playing rugby of all things, a cleat or something tore a 10 inch long gash in my left leg (some of you who knew me back then may remember my “staples”).

My parents were out that afternoon so my freind Mike’s mom offered to drive me to the hospital under the condition that she not be shown the “injury”. At the hospital they cleaned it up, shot me with freezing and tried to stitch it closed but ended up having problems. It was too deep and the skin flaps were not co-operating. The nurse had an idea. Since she also assisted with C-sections she thought they could staple me closed and went off to the delivery floor to get a medical stapler. I waited.. for 30 minutes... I had grabbed The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers at my place so at least I had something to do. Pretty soon another patient came into the room that proved to be far more entertaining than my book.

An old man and his wife were shown into the other half of my hospital room and the nurse pulled the curtain closed between my half of the room and theirs. The guy was in pain, had an ice pack, and very pissed off. The nurse asked him a bunch of medical questions. I heard through the curtain that he was going to be 80 years old in a few weeks but looked much younger and was in great shape. The nurse told him the doctor would be in shortly and left.

I tuned them out but perked up when his wife told him their lawyer said that he should not, under any circumstances ”talk to the police”(I put my book down). An emerge doctor came in. Right away he explained that he would not be the one treating him because he was not the “doctor that goes to court”. They had a special one that did that who would oversee his examination(what the hey?).
In the time it took the other “court” doctor to show up I gathered from eavesdropping that he had been assaulted by the police for a traffic stop, and that he managed to get home somehow where he was arrested with police sirens and flashing lights everywhere, and that he was in so much pain the police had taken him to the hospital from the police station. It sounded like there was a policeman outside the door that brought him there and he did not want him in the room at all and wanted to close the door.

So soon after that the other doctor shows up and the old gentleman asks him “What did they tell you?” And the doctor says “Just assume I know nothing and tell me what happened from the beginning” (me on the other side of the curtain - alright!!!!).

The elderly gentleman did not like seat belts that extend over the shoulder. He somehow clips the waist belt and has the shoulder strap behind him because he doesn’t like it across the front touching his neck. As a result he gets pulled over a lot for not having his seat belt but they let him go when they see he has the waist belt cinched. He explained this thing he does where he opens the car door and tugs the waist belt like an elastic and pulls it out from his body and lets it snap back so the police can see he is wearing it. They then let him go on his way. Until today. Today he and his wife were stopped at a red light and a police car directly behind him turned on the sirens and flashed the lights for him to stop. He gestured at the cop, opened his door, did his trick with the belt and slammed the car door closed. The policeman was out of his car and had walked halfway to the man’s car door when the light turned green and the old man simply drove away :-). This resulted in a very slow “car chase” at 40 km an hour, police sirens blaring while the man drove home.

When he pulled into his driveway he told his wife to “go call the lawyer” and got out of the car slowly and walked up the steps behind her. The policeman chasing him was out of his patrol car yelling at him to freeze and get on the ground and all that. He turned to the policeman from his front porch and shouted that he had been wearing his seatbelt and that there was no need for the officer to be there, etc.. (I don’t remember all of what he said but I remember this next part).

The old guy is half in the door of his house at this point and the policeman is at the foot of the stairs to his porch. I don’t know if there is a legal thing where you can’t go into a house to arrest someone for a traffic stop, but after they exchanged more words the cop said something that pissed the old guy off and the old man said: “If you weren’t wearing glasses I’d come down there and sock you right in the mouth!”. The policemen took his glasses off and laid them on the hood of the guy’s car and smiled at him. This enraged the old guy who came down the stairs at the policeman and the next thing he knew he was on the ground doubled over in pain getting handcuffed.

“The bastard kicked me right in the balls!” Said the old man to the doctor.

His wife nodded. She saw it.

“Take a look!” There was the sound of clothing being removed, a moment of silence and a few “Hmmm’s”. I remember the colour “purple” being mentioned. Tests were going to be done, photographs were going to be taken (???).

“You don’t kick someone in the balls! We didn’t do that back in my day! I was in the war!!” (he was in the war!!!! Of course he was!)

Then my nurse came back, she got pulled off on an emergency but now she was here to staple me. “Sorry for the wait, at least you brought a book!”.

How to program a Noma Outdoor Timer model 052-8873-0 49887

Years ago my wife bought these cool Noma outdoor timers with two plugs from Canadian Tire and when she pulled them out recently, they didn't work. They looked like they were programmed correctly but nada, no dice, nothing. Some of the numbers on the back are 052-8873-0 and 49887. If you search the web for this device, you also get nada, nothing, crap. Noma products are some of the most poorly documented devices out there and their web support presence is non-existent. When you type in these numbers all you get are stupid websites that want to charge you $40 US for a PDF download of some photocopied manual that is not even the same model of the thing you're looking for, or websites where helpful but clueless people post answers like "Your NOMA timer does not exist, but here is a website on water heater timers, just do what they say..."

Yes, the web is chocked full of people willing to give you useless information or trying to make a buck off you in order to program the thing you bought years ago but chucked/recycled the instruction sheet for. So, after an evening of pressing buttons, I present to you, the answer to the question of "How the hell do you program this stupid thing?"

There are six main buttons. Minute, Hour, Day, Clock, Prog, On-Off, and some secondary functions like RDM(random) and DST(daylight savings time). There is also an R(reset) and RCL-CD which I think is recall or reset or something.

To set the clock, hold the Clock button and keep it held down while you manipulate the Minute, Hour, Day(pay attention to the am/pm). When you let go of Clock, it should save the time settings.

When you press "Prog", notice the small "1" on the left for program 1. Each numbered program (there are 20) has an "On" and an "Off" setting and text is shown on the left to display what mode you are in("On" appears first). "On" is what time you want the thing to come on, "Off" is when it will shut off.

Repeatedly pressing Prog skips to program 1 "On" then Program 1 "Off", then program 2 "On", program 2 "Off" etc.. If you want every day of the week, press the Day button several times until all the days of the week are displayed (it will flash by with variants and you stop onb the one you want, mon to fri, Mon, Wed, Fri, etc..).

To set the "On" time for Program 1 , press the Hour and Minute to the desired time. To set the Off time, press Prog once (notice the off text on the left) and press Hour and Minute to the desired shut off times. To get out of Prog mode, press Clock once.

The key to making the device work, and the one point of confusion for me was the On-Off button. It cycles through four modes: On, Off, Auto On, Auto Off and they must be set in a particular way. If it is currently 5pm when you are programming and you are expecting an On time of 6pm and an Off time of 11pm, press On-Off until it says "AUTO Off". This means that it is 5 pm, you want the device to be off, but come on automatically at 6pm and off at 11pm. Setting On-Off to "On" or "Off" just overrides the programming and makes the device look like it is not working. If it was 7pm I guess you'd leave it at "Auto On" and the programmed off time for program 1 would kick in and shut if off.

The RND (random) is if you want to randomize the times you selected by adding a tiny offset so it does not start at 6pm exactly but perhaps 6:13 or something like that. I haven't been able to experiment with this fully but it appears to work along those lines. To use this hold down the Hour button (the one that says RND over it) for five seconds until you see the RND text appear on the right.

DST (Daylight Savings Time) works the same way. Press the Clock button (that says DST under it) and the clock will jump ahead an hour(hold it for five seconds).

And there it is.. no thanks to Noma.. I was about ready to go to Canadian Tire and bust open the box and take a picture with my phone

Stupid Noma.....